XFX HD6970 Black Edition Review

The reference HD6970 is a great high performance solution from AMD. It makes an ideal partner for a high resolution gaming system. Furthermore we appreciate that it supports tri screen gaming out of the box, without any extra cost. Multiple screen gaming is no longer a privilege of the rich as a decent 24 inch screen can be bought for £150 in the UK. With a HD6970, 5760×1080 gaming is possible, even without an expensive Crossfire configuration.

Unfortunately the XFX HD6970 Black Edition has failed to really excite us. While XFX are offering solid overclocked values ‘out of the box', the card hasn't received any special treatment in regards to a custom cooling solution or PCB design, which KitGuru noted recently on the fantastic PowerColor HD6970 PCS+ card. Not only is the Powercolor product clocked faster out of the box (940mhz), but it runs cooler, consumes less power and emits less noise.

The XFX bundle is good, we like the little extras such as the branded stickers, ‘do not disturb' sign and metal badge. They also pair the products up with a great warranty service and live support on their website if the customer starts to experience any problems. We have tested this support system recently by pretending to own one of their cards and the technical support guy appeared to have a fair grasp of the technology.

In a similar manner to the recent HIS HD6970 Turbo release, we feel that selling a ‘special edition' of AMD's flagship technology should merit a custom cooling solution and PCB design. We are aware that XFX hand pick these overclocked cards from their production batches for ‘Black Edition' status, but Powercolor have recently moved the goalposts with their stunning HD6970 PCS+ solution. Therefore we can recommend this XFX HD6970 Black Edition, especially if the price is right, but XFX had a fantastic opportunity to use an updated version of their excellent dual fan cooler.

Pros:

• Excellent performance, out of the box
• Overclocks great, and is hand picked from the production line to earn ‘Black Edition' status
• Good Bundle
• Great support and warranty options

Cons:

• No custom cooler design
• can get loud under load
• runs quite hot
• no free game

KitGuru says: A great performance tweak on the reference design, but it has failed to truly excite the KitGuru team.

Become a Patron!